


Finding Another Us

by hauntedshoes



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: (but not for long), Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Blood, Everybody Dies, M/M, Mild Gore, Neopronouns, Reincarnation, Unrequited Love, they come back to life but still, this turned out way darker than expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedshoes/pseuds/hauntedshoes
Summary: Comrades in arms Joseph (Commie) and Jay (Ancom) have been fighting a long war against the Capitalists of their city. The extent of the conflict bringing ruin to the city, supplies, people and the sanity of both parties have been running low. Joseph finds himself falling for the figurehead of the leftist faction, an Anarchist named Jay, but before he has the chance to reveal anything the unthinkable happens.It turns out some wars really can be endless as they find themselves waking up in a new world of wonder, belief and terror.
Relationships: Authleft/Libleft, Leftist Unity (Relationship)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Finding Another Us

**Author's Note:**

> The story starts based in the real world but the war takes place in the future at an unspecified point in time.  
> Went with Joseph and Jay as names since they seem to be fandom favourite names and also I like them.  
> Qui/Quem/Cuius is based off the Latin pronoun.

The bomb went off right under the noses of the Leftists.

Joseph had estimated that something was wrong with the building the moment that he had entered with Jay. He had remembered warning qui that something was clearly off with the complex, but Jay had reassured him that everyone would be just fine.

Jay seemed self-assured in cuius decision to set-up a functional anarchist base here, even if it was just a temporary one as Joseph had convinced them not to stay there for too long.

As a true-blooded Communist, Joseph wouldn’t imagine that he would have ended up working with the Anarchists to combat the right-wing extremists who had tried to take over the city. It had been an unusual alliance so far, but one which had been strangely welcoming in the eyes of Joseph – Joseph had met Jay in the end after all, which had been the best part of this horrid mess of a war.

The unity between the Communists and Anarchists inside the city itself was still shaky overall. Still, it was an awful lot better than both parties immediately falling to the right-wingers, filthy kulaks that they were. There were disagreements between them, Joseph knew that some of the Anarchist’s feared that the other Communists would take power by force once the right-wing threat was dispatched and even murder them. As a result, most of the Anarchists were incredibly, suspicious of the Communists and saw them as simple ‘comrades’ rather than actual friends.

Jay was different than that, though. Jay was the warmest and friendliest ‘Ancom’ that Joseph had ever met. Even when the other Anarchist’s looked at Joseph and his fellow Communists with disdain, Jay was like a ray of sunshine through a day of dark clouds – cheesy as it sounded. Jay had always been the one to convince the others that Joseph had belonged with them, and together, they could fight the oppressors and create a glorious communist future. Jay would fill him with optimism, even on days where he felt as if he was going to lose everything.

Eventually, Jay became a kind of figurehead to these people. Jay started to be the one making decisions within the group because people were really starting to respect quem. Jay had been the first to suggest that the leftists needed to move out of the city centre complex for both the good of their safety and so they could have more space to plot the kulaks movements. This was an odd bit of caution on cuius part – Joseph had respect quem for that. An odd bit of cation which had quickly run thin as it seemed the young Ancom had decided on the first place that had caught cuius eye.

A building which had entirely seemed hollow at first, some kind of disused former office which had been vacated a long time ago. Going inside, seeing the empty tables, broken computers, torn up blue carpets with those little squares of alternating colours on them: it reminded Joseph of how, despite the war, at least the signs of the former capitalist system was starting to erode away. Joseph could even remind himself of the many centrists that all the leftists had eventually managed to radicalise.  _ Who would have thought it, huh? _

Joseph had remembered the exact conversation he had had with Jay before he had decided to leave him, out of fear of his own safety.

_ Worrying about his own safety? During a war with those ruthless capitalists?  _ He must have been so weak, and even weaker to just leave behind someone who he cared about so much.

The Anarchists and many of the other Communists had already nearly finished setting up as Joseph left, realistically, he was just a few minutes away from having the same fate as them. He could have called himself lucky if he was selfish like that.

They had hollowed out a few windows, started placing a variety of their weapons and made a few more Molotov cocktails in case they had needed them. They had also shared out their rations, perfectly evenly, of course, none of the leftists would have had it any other way.

Despite the pleasing aesthetic of the end of capitalism the building had, Joseph had found it strange that the entire thing had laid untouched. It was in-tact, it hadn’t lost any floors and was still close enough to the city centre so that it would likely be on the kulak’s radar but also far away enough so that they would have you believe that they had simply chosen to ignore it. It had space for a large group of people, it was kind of perfect as a base of operation. It was almost as if it was the enemy had left it here for Jay to find so the kulaks could ultimately find and destroy every single one of them.

Most of the tasks were done, and Jay was trying to find a way to get quemselves comfortable after all the busy work, Joseph was still pacing around in panic. Although he hadn’t seen anything physically suspicious, no weird packages or objects lodged into the wall. There was nothing.  _ Then why? Why was Joseph so unreasonably worried?  _

“Hey, you still running around like that? Why can’t you just sit with me for a bit, come on, take that stress off your shoulders!” Jay’s voice called to him from afar.

Joseph looked back at quem from the other side of the room. Qui’s bright green eyes reflected the setting of the sun from the open window behind quem. Jay was smiling as if qui didn’t have a care in the world right now, as if qui and the other leftists had already won.

“J-Jay, I still don’t think it’s right for us to be here.”

“Oh, come on, we’ve been here a good few hours and nothing has happened yet, I don’t know why you are still running circles!”

“The back of my brain, I’m not convinced that we should really be here – I mean…”

“No? Well everyone else seems just fine, nothing to report, calm your head my dear, uh, comrade!”

_ Comrade.  _ Joseph’s heart fluttered whenever Jay would call him that – of course, he never actually got to tell quem that.

“But, comrade Jay – I can’t seem to shake the feeling that something is terribly, terribly wrong here, even if I can’t see it.”

Jay was leaning back on the wall, the cool evening breeze was gently pushing Jay’s strands of brown and green curled hair across cuius face. The large green hoodie that qui was wearing must have been keeping quem warm through the brutal winter conflict. Joseph had often wondered what it had felt like to wear and had always wanted to get around to asking the Ancom if qui wanted to trade cuius cute hoodie for his nice red coat, but it had always felt too awkward to ask.

“You’re worrying too much, you’re always worrying too much!”

“Maybe but I am, but this war is serious Jay, it really is, and you just seem to –“

“Seem to what, Joseph? You think I’m doing a bad job?” Jay’s face approached frowning.

“No, No, No, you can’t be doing a bad job – you’ve been nothing but helpful and masterful in all you have done so far, for everyone, for me.”

“For you?” Jay blinked, at least qui wasn’t frowning anymore.

“You know, for us, comrade!”

“Oh, yes!” Jay nodded. “I’m so glad that I got to help everyone, surprised that all the leftists really saw as someone to look up to!”

“Because of course, you are, we might have been crushed by those kulaks now if it hadn’t had been for you!”

“Are you flattering me? I’m not that inspirational! I’m just one of the many ancoms trying to do uh, anarchist and communist stuff?”

“But you do it oh so perfectly!”

“Me? Perfect?” Even with the dulling of the light, a noticeable red streak appearing across cuius face. “Now now, that just is flattery.”

“I flatter you because you… do sell yourself short. I think some of us, we owe our lives to you and your planning, you’re just really good…”

The Communists and the Anarchists didn’t really have much of a unified understanding of one another before Jay. They had been fragmented, and that fragmentation surely would have killed them at some point, they wouldn’t have cared about one another, and they would have been far fewer in numbers.

“Naaah, it’s not all me, it can’t be all me.”

Joseph but his arm around Jay – touching quem he remembered that cuius hoodie really was that warm. As the sun had nearly disappeared from the sky, it seemed to be getting colder and colder through the disturbed building. Joseph wasn’t usually a touchy person, but Jay seemed the kind of person who was willing to warm him up.

As Joseph pulled Jay a little closer to him, and Jay seemed to smile in obligation.

“I guess it just kind of feels like you had a big part to play, you know?”

“Well, if you’re that inspired by me, I guess I’ll have to take that!”

Joseph sighed; Jay seemed comfortable almost ‘cuddled’ next to him. The short conversation with him mixed with the embrace had nearly made him forget the threat to both their lives.

Jay had shut cuius eyes, qui must have been tired. Sorting out an entire group of leftists was for sure tiring work. Jay probably hadn’t even realised that qui was starting to fall asleep. As nice as it was to have Jay just fall asleep next to him, Joseph would have to tell quem that it wasn’t safe for them to be here and that everything Jay had done that day had been for nothing. In fact, even if Jay and the other leftists wouldn’t leave, Joseph would.

Staying here, it just wouldn’t quell his consciousness.

“I’m sorry, Jay, I have to mention this again, but we can’t set up our resources here.”

“We’re done though, and then we’ll have to look for another place, wouldn’t we? Who knows where else we can go? What if we find nowhere else – it’s all just destroyed?”

“But… they never destroyed the outer city, did they, Comrade Jay? There would be plenty of places if only we looked.”

“We can’t go somewhere too far away! Then the right-wingers will just take and take everything else, leaving us with the tiny bit left! Plus, don’t you want to know what they’re up to? Isn’t that like, something that we need to do?”

“I know this place seems perfect, but in reality, I think it must be –”

“Must be? But it is, isn’t it? Look, Joseph, I think we really have a good chance if we stay here, the right-wingers have essentially ignored this place, and we can launch an attack on them without even knowing.”

“You really have your heart set on this place, huh?”

Jay lifted cuius head from Joseph’s arm and blinked at him with cuius green eyes. “Well when you phrase it like that it’s a bit awkward, but yes…”

Joseph looked back at Jay and stared at quem. Because of his nervousness, he had missed his chance, God damn it! But, as Joseph saw it, he was doing the right thing for his safety, and what should have been everyone’s safety.

Sad thing, he was right.

“If that’s the case, then I can’t stay.”

Joseph stood up and moved away from Jay, who was already looking disappointed.

“You can’t stay with us? Stay with me?”

“No. If it really is safe, I will return in the morning. Meanwhile, I will watch the perimeter from the outside in case anyone gets in…”

As he was walking away, Joseph noticed that Jay had started pulling at some of cuius minty strands of hair or wrapping it around cuius finger. “You’re gonna leave us all tonight? All of us?”

“Yes, uh, likely just for tonight though, maybe a couple nights after, once my brain is convinced that it’s safe here – I might not be long.” Joseph laughed nervously as Jay was growing more and more restless.

“Might not be?”

“Surely – Surely won’t be!”

“Oh… well I guess I’ll see you later then?”

“Yes, see you, uh, later, soon, later.”

Jay had stopped pulling at cuius own hair and had risen to stand. It was only now that Joseph had noticed how scruffy Jay actually looked: frayed shorts and sneakers, unkempt hair and dark circles under cuius eyes. Jay had really been through a lot in the past few weeks.

Jay had been so strong, whereas he had been so weak.

“Uh, Comrade, Joseph?”

“What is it, Jay?”

“You know, I’d like it if we finished that hug we were having! You know, before you leave and all.”

Joseph felt himself grow warmer, for some reason, he never thought that Comrade Jay would ask.

“Why, of course!”

Jay fell forward into the Communist’s chest and shut cuius eyes again. Joseph gently put his finger through the mess of cuius curly hair. They spent around a minute just standing like this and Joseph felt Jay’s soft breathing on his chest, which he could feel escalating by the second.

Joseph let go as he saw the first stars appear in the sky through that hollowed out window.

“I’ll be going now, take care of everyone, dear Comrade Jay.”

The short Anarchist sniffed as qui looked up at Comrade Joseph for what qui didn’t know was going to be the last time. “A-and you, Joseph.”

Joseph gave quem a nod and turned away.

He grabbed his gun before heading down the stairwell. Holding the rail, he kicked some of the remaining tiles that were still stuck to each of the individual stairs. Each floor had a window, and as Joseph descended, he could see the nearly abandoned city grow closer and closer.

A once that was, although disgustingly capitalist had at least been bright and shining. Many of the white and silvery buildings had partly collapsed and had lost their colour, turning bronze. Entire floors had just been demolished in the conflict. Joseph had found himself wondering if Jay was right and there were no other buildings that were functioning the same way this one was – all the more reason that it would be a trap. However, it was depressing to Joseph that fact that all signs of life, simple human life, people existing and going about their routines even if those routines were what Joseph saw as being horribly oppressive for them.

There had been many casualties on both sides of the conflict – sometimes it seemed as if they were some of the last ones left. After the first firing of the first bullet, the existence of ‘civilians’ seemed to disappear. You were either on one side or the other and regardless of what side you chose, you were fighting for your life and much more than that.

Joseph found himself on the last staircase where the exit – the former fire exit specifically, was right there waiting for him. He pushed open the still functioning spring bar and the outside world opened up to him. What of it that remained, at least.

He hadn’t been alone outside in a long time. Ever since the war started, he would have always had some of the other leftists to keep him company. They had always travelled as a group as it was for the best. It was odd, but Joseph felt a lot less frightened now and less fearful than he had ever been.

Positioning his shoes, carefully, as not to trip on the rubble: metal, stone, plaster, glass, probably a decomposing body or two, Joseph ambled his way to reach the highest point that was still roughly inside the city limits.

There were no people living in the forest and thus it wasn’t exactly a hotly contested area. Some of it had been pillaged for the limited resources that it had, but a good amount of it had remained untouched. There was very little reason to be there but judging by the way this entire conflict was going the forest would eventually be destroyed too.

There would have probably no new status-quo because everyone was dead.

The outskirts of the city and only ‘forested’ area that it held did have one advantage opposed to all of the technology, and it’s uses within the rest of the city walls, and that was its function as a kind of look-out spot. Because it was on the top of a hill, you could climb and get enough to height in order to get a good view of the rest of the city. Joseph was a reasonable distance from Jay and the other lefties, he hadn’t been this far from quem in a while. He was a bit too far to leap into action immediately if he sensed any danger but far enough so that he would be able to see anybody who might have entered the complex from the side before they had a chance to get near enough. Of course, this would provide no help if the building was actually rigged on the inside like Joseph had first expected. He gulped, he could only hope he was wrong or at least, that the attack would be external.

Joseph placed his hand on the bark of a tree, resting it just gently enough so that he wouldn’t fall by accident. All the stars were visible, Joseph used to remember what all of them meant, they each had some kind of symbol behind them that his parents had told him about. Now he couldn’t remember, he wished that he could remember now he was alone with the stars.

It didn’t matter that Joseph was supposed to be keeping watch or something, his mind kept going back to the other Anarchists and especially to Jay.  _ What did Jay really think of him?  _ It was as if he was desperate to tell Jay something, but he couldn’t exactly tell what, as if it was locked in the back of his mind. If Joseph could read the stars, then he would at least have stories to tell himself, to keep himself mentally busy or distracted. But in the end, the stars meant nothing, just symbolism without a purpose.  _ Did he really need that when he was fighting for something so great? _

He knelt down and started looking at the dirt instead, at least that didn’t have made up symbolic value. Feeling sorry for himself, he was losing the ability to focus, something in his brain felt numb. He felt as if he was losing something, deeply, something that was even a part of himself…

Then he heard the explosion.

A great gush of smoke and fire was rising from the very place that Joseph had fled. It had been a bomb. Joseph had been entirely correct. Nobody had believed him, and now the building was collapsing underneath all of them.

The building itself was crumbling, tearing itself apart floor by floor. Its collapse was almost beautiful to look at. As if the building had been preparing its death all this time. It was graceful, it broke down with control and not chaos. The ashes scattering through the air, causing yet more smoke to fly around. Joseph blinked, he blinked and kept blinking and then he realised that he was crying.

Spotting a beat-up looking car heading toward the newly created rubble, Joseph had no choice but to run.

His legs moved slowly, far more slowly than they should have done. His mind trying to wrap around everything that had just happened.

_ Was there still a chance of winning this war? _

_ Would the kulaks just fucking kill us all? _

_ All at once? _

_ Was Jay dead too? _

It was as if everything Joseph had ever cared about had just gone up in flames.

_ It was all over. Wasn’t it? _

Through his tears, Joseph fumbled. Nearly falling from the simple drop in the hill, he still continued his unsteady run through the debris-filled wasteland. His brown shoes clipping all shards of hard metal. It made his toes feel numb, even underneath his boots, it hurt. But Joseph didn’t care. Joseph knew that he had to get back to Jay, and that was all that mattered.

As he was getting closer and closer to the building, he found himself coughing as the tiny particles of fire and dust clogged his throat.

“Jay…” he cried out inadvertently.

He pushed the tears away from his eyes which were also burning – both from the tears and all of the dust. His feet pushed on what had been an entire window from the old office complex. Only slightly smashed, but now covered in blood. Looking down, Joseph realised that this must have been the window they had pushed out when they came here. One of the few ‘neat’ uses of destruction, surrounded by the horrific annihilation of everything else those capitalists had caused.

Joseph’s throat closed as he spluttered, continuing to cry. There was one floor of the building left, everything else had collapsed. The visions of the poorly built car had now vanished. Even if there was another threat around, Joseph wouldn’t have been able to see it or notice it. His mind was only filled with Jay.

_ Jay, Jay, was Jay, alright? _

_ Qui had to be, qui had to have survived, right? _

_ Not just for the movement, for what it meant to be a communist but for him too. _

Joseph felt selfish for wanting just the person he cared about back, he had loved Jay, but it was a betrayal to the movement for him to care just that much.

Joseph was a bad communist.

To care more about this one person, than the revolution.

What a joke he was.

There was but one opening left in the obliterated building, like one room that was still standing. It had lost its paint, and the brick supports could be seen. There was no door, just an empty and dark gap in the wall. Peering inside, Joseph saw several of the wall supports had just fallen in and collapsed random areas. Much of the light was blocked by beams and other parts of the rubble.

It was incredibly dark inside, Joseph had to squint through his tears in order to make out anything at all. What he did make out – bloodstains, bodies. A graveyard of the unburied. Very few of his former comrades had a clear landing either on top of or beneath all of the rubble the explosion had caused.

Most of them were not left in form. Parts of limbs, arms and legs just scattered around the remains of the building. Blood splatters what seemed to be the oddest of locations, that’s really how far the bodies had been spread around. The sweet stench of death already flooded the place, its closed-in warmth, the still spreading fire, wasn’t helping.

There was no level of imagination that Joseph had that could have found that would have allowed him to pretend that Jay was still alive.

Joseph went inside the last room of the building.

The grotesque makeshift mausoleum that it was.

He had to cover his mouth to stop himself from throwing up. He had seen his fair share of awful things during the conflict, everyone had but the scale of death and scale of loss…

Joseph had lost everything.

He could have accepted that he could have run, he could have run as far away as possible and left his old city to its fate. If he was lucky, then maybe he would find somewhere where he could live out the rest of his days without having to fight anymore.

He could have been a coward a second time.

No, whatever that aftermath was he deserved to witness it, almost as if it was a punishment.

Like he deserved it.

The (mostly) enclosed space had a small handful of bodies which seemed otherwise complete. There was enough of them to be given a proper burial, it was the least Joseph could have given them – if he too was able to survive that is.

The bodies seemed to form an odd kind of circle. Some of them with their hands cupped onto their face like they were trying to sleep, others had fallen completely on their back with the blood clearly visible splattered across their backs and across their hair. However, at least one of them had its body contorted in a clearly unnatural manner.

Bones bent out of shape. One entire arm pointing upwards, the hand with induvial fingers turned in all directions, the rest of the body was in some kind of curved position and the hoodie that it was wearing…

Joseph kneeled in closer and noticed that it was Jay’s body… it was Jay’s body for sure.

Cuius soft brown and green hair had partly peeled away, revealing part of cuius soft skull. The hair that did remain had been mixed with the deep red blood and grey-ish segments of brain that was now falling out. Cuius left arm only looked half intact, there was only one hand there, the rest was a bloody stump showing bone.

It was a horrific mess, qui was a horrific mess. Joseph didn’t care. He wanted to look at comrade Jay, who had taught him so much, one last time. He gently lifted up Jay’s head – cuius green eyes empty – cuius soul gone.

Joseph didn’t know if he believed in souls. Part of him thought that the entire concept was stupid and that the nothing after death was certain, but as he looked into Jay’s face now, he saw that light of some kind had gone out, a light that was deeper than mere consciousness.

His eyes started watering again. Jay. Jay was gone. Everything was gone. Joseph’s eyes: throat: face was burning. He almost threw the corpse to the floor in his blind sorrow. His gushing tears and his brain running at thousands of miles an hour he didn’t even notice the muttering and stomping of feet outside.

Like Joseph would have been able to run anyway. Not because he wasn’t physically able to, but because of how the sudden sensation of learned helplessness had hit him. There was no use in running.

_ This was the end. This was the end of everything. _

_ No revolution. _

_ Just death. Meaninglessness. _

“Look there’s still one left!”

A man with a deep blue suit, holding a gun entered the room. “Ha, well lookey lookey, we’re nearly done. Pathetic aren’t they!”

A second man, with a much fancier yellow suit, appeared from behind him. His face was full of almost as much fear as Joseph. The two of them trembling, despite being on opposite sides of the war. Even when prompted for a response, the second man said nothing.

Joseph didn’t want to let himself go out like this, he wanted to go out for the good of the revolution, or for the good of protecting who he cared about. Not with his stupid anxiety getting everyone killed. Not alone with no hope like a coward.

He imagined himself pulling out his gun and pointing it back and gunning down both of his enemies in a blaze of glory – a last stand, but he didn’t have that kind of energy. Right now, any kind of movement seemed too much for him.

_ Dying in a blaze of glory? _

_ What was the point, he didn’t deserve it… _

“I’ll just take him out before he does anything stupid, who knew it would be this easy after all, huh?”

Joseph felt a fleeting dash of rage, immense pain and then nothing.

-

Nothing.

That’s what Joseph thought existed after death.

After the nothing, Joseph opened his eyes to a sparkling stream of lights – fuzzy, disconnected strings which seemed to pull at him from somewhere.

That and Joseph wasn’t Joseph anymore. It was impossible for Joseph to be Joseph anymore. He was in the place where humanity is disallowed, in the place where identity was disallowed.

His entity felt fuzzy, disconnected and unknowable. He knew he was feeling something, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was.

Some unknowable emotion – it wasn’t sadness from just losing something, or rage from his life ending out of nowhere, it wasn’t happiness at being alive again either.

_ Was he alive? _

As he would learn, not in the conventional sense, he was needed for something – he was needed for something that required him not to be Joseph.

It seemed as if the invisible wires kept tugging and dragging him forward. He couldn’t resist and didn’t want to.

That unknowable emotion, from an unknowable entity that seemed intertwined with what appeared to be acceptance.

He reached out with his hand and touched the image of the light ahead of him: the pulling starting to cease and a cold chill filling his body.

Flesh that wasn’t real, yet still felt things. Flesh which was created from abstract reason, created because it had to be – for its purpose.

It was cold here, he had found himself in a new place, a cold place. The snow here almost like the dust of the warzone in its quality, fine and blinding but the opposite in its nature, crystalline and purifying, healing.

Not that he needed to be healed. He wasn’t in pain anymore, physical or emotional, he had been totally healed and wondered if he would ever feel pain again in this new form.

He eventually found himself lying on a blanket of snow. This environment, at least, seemed tangible this time. He was sure that he was in a real place with at least some physical basis.

He was able to look down at himself and try and judge exactly what had happened to him. His skin had turned red, bright red. The rest of him appeared the same as it always had, though. There were no clear noticeable, physical changes, and he was still human, at least, appearance-wise.

Although he hadn’t noticed it at first, he had actually grown a good few dozen centimetres taller. He was larger and more imposing in general – almost in a kind of inhuman way, but it didn’t surprise him, in fact, it felt shockingly right.

His name, he mulled it over in his head whilst he was lying in the snow.

_ Authoritarian Left. _

_ Communist. _

_ AuthLeft. _

_ Maybe just ‘Tankie’. _

All of these worked.

All of these made sense in their own way.

He lay there, looking at the cold sun above him. He was lucky to be alive. He was lucky to be alive again.

He just lay there in wonder – still, no idea where he was or what exactly for that matter.

_ Was he some kind of personification? _

_ That made a bit of sense considering… the naming and such. _

_ Heh, a true Communist, but only in the afterlife.  _

_ Perhaps this was some kind of punishment, so he couldn’t run away. _

_ He had to own up to his original destiny. _

Looking over to the side, Tankie saw that the plain of snow stopped. A strange half-tarmac and half grass formation. Even further in the distance, Tankie saw rows of oddly shaped buildings with symbols drawn on them like graffiti patterns.

Tankie slowly stood up and brushed the snow off his coat – which was just as bright red as the rest of him. He also noticed he was wearing some kind of hat that matched the coat. That Russian style hat with warm ear flaps that kept the cold away from the rest of your head. Ushanka – that’s what it was called.

He took it off briefly and noticed a symbol pressed into it as if it was iron or steel forced into the soft material – it was somehow ‘burnt’ in so that it would never come off or fade. It was perfectly made, eerily created as if it was explicitly for him. Tankie put it back on his head, taking it off made him feel as if he was breaking some kind of rule.

The snow drained away as Tankie approached the new urban-esque area. Even the snow from his clothes started to fade as he entered. The atmosphere and even the smell changed as he completely left the snowy area behind. Tankie felt as if he had passed some kind of barrier, an invisible barrier.

He had at once entered a place that he didn’t belong.

A place he didn’t belong – but a place that he needed to go.

When he reached the place, he heard a calling from afar.

_ A calling? A whimpering? It could have been either. _

_ But either way, the voice was familiar. _

_ Someone he knew was here. _

Tankie grew warm, and an odd sense of relief came over him.

_ A sense of relief here? In a place like this? _

Tankie, Communist, he didn’t care what he became or how he got here, he just wanted to find this person who seemed to have lost in a vortex to nowhere.

Sure, as it was, the more Tankie ran, the closer he got to…

There was figure standing, small and hunched over, all alone - a bright green figure holding a kind of wooden bat covered in nails. A cat-shaped hoodie the same colour as their skin and hair also coloured both…

_ The voice. The clothing. Everything was making sense. _

“I, well, I know…”

The figure peered up, matching green eyes, round with tears and trembling. “You know…”

“I think I saw you…”

“…once…”

“In a daydream that…”

“…resulted in both of us…”

“Coming here.”

The Communist and the Anarchist looked up at one another in a place of their own ideals. One which was crafted for them for others just like them who fought in life for what would have been their perfect world.

A world which was made so that the war they had each had a part in creating would never end.

Tankie felt the Ancom’s soft breathing on his chest, as he found himself agreeing that the hug they had once shared was cut short.

**Author's Note:**

> Continue one day, maybe?  
> I liked how the ending of this one turned out and I do see potential in extending it (having them learn how to deal with their feelings whilst accepting they are political ideologies now which would maybe make this pre-canon?) For the time being, this will remain a one-shot though whilst I think things through I suppose.


End file.
